Ed Sheeran tells Zane Lowe about his Eric Clapton inspiration, festivals and Taylor Swift.
Check out Ed's quotes below.
“I watched the queens jubilee in 2002 and Eric Clapton came on stage and played Laila and I was like "wow, that looks really cool! I wanna play that!” And that was why I got a guitar, the first song I learnt was Laila. It was pretty much the only song I knew for about a year!”
“In primary school I had Slipknot records and Limp Bizkit, Soil, Tool, I was like Proper ‘Kerrang!’ Kid and then soon as I got to secondary school my record collection started off with Guns and Roses and then I bought ‘Justified’ in 2002 and everyone thought I was bit odd for that. All the girls loved Timberlake but if you’re a guy and someone’s just come out of Nsync when you’re 11…”
“I grew up listening to [Justin Timberlake]. I personally think he’s one of best life performers I’ve seen. Saw him in Palladium after the Grammies and got very excited!”
“Festivals are best place to lose yourself. After 3 days of not washing, not showering, not putting your make-up on if you’re a girl. You don’t really give a f**k about what you look like any more. So why not dance like an idiot?”
“I wasn’t a very marketable person ever. This was point where James Blunt was huge. All labels looking for next singer-songwriter and I was chubby, ginger kid with a small guitar (smaller than mini one) and went in with ‘You Need Me, I Don’t Need You’ about industry, trying to get them onside while tearing them apart. Knockbacks seemed bad at time, but looking back if I’d been at label I’d have knocked myself back then.”
“[Taylor Swift] owns US pop scene. She knows how to do it. In England I was a commercially successful artist, but coming in to US as alternative artist playing shows with Snow Patrol. She not only opened door in pop world but told me how to do it. You have to do all radio shows at Christmas and do all those sessions. The key is not to lose that. Everyone is nice at beginning but it’s when you go back in and you hear about likes of Rob Thomas who’s still as nice as he was at beginning…”
